Jack Conway on Budget & Economy

Against TARP bailouts due to lack of accountability

PAUL: Do you support the president's agenda or do you not support it?

CONWAY: I support some of President Obama's agenda. The stimulus, 1/3 of it went to tax cuts. 1/3 of it went to keeping the jobs of police and firefighters. And
1/3 supposedly went to shovel-ready projects where the administration hasn't done that great a job. Actually, I wouldn't have voted for the bailouts. There weren't enough accountability in them. We had people getting bonuses after getting the bailouts.
And on health care, look, we've got 654,000 Kentuckians getting health care for the first time as a result of this bill. What I'm not for, is the $2,000 deductible and taking our health care system back to a pre-World War II system, which is what
Rand Paul's on the record as having said. So I'd like to fix health care. He wants to repeal it. And I think that's a stark difference.

IRS bailouts reward banks for poor business practices

Jack Conway responded to news that Citigroup and other big financial institutions that are recipients of federal bailout funds will now get billions of dollars in tax breaks from the IRS: "It is outrageous that the IRS is giving billions in tax breaks to
one of the same banks that received a no-strings-attached bailout from Washington. The root of the problem is a lack of accountability. Washington sold the American people on bailouts for 'too big to fail' institutions by saying the recipients of bailout
money would have to pay that money back to the taxpayers. But now, just as the bill is coming due, the IRS has basically rewarded the banks for the poor business practices that led to a need for the bailouts in the first place."

"I will fight for
prudent oversight of financial institutions and be sure we learn from past mistakes. My job will be to increase transparency in the financial industry, strengthen consumer protections and improve economic opportunities for the people facing hard times."